FIG. 7 is a perspective view showing an example of a configuration of the principal parts of a confocal scanner employing the conventional Nipkow disk method. The related art concerning the confocal scanner employing the conventional Nipkow disk method has been disclosed in Patent Document 1.
An excited light 2 emitted from a light source 1 is guided into an incident end 4a of an optical fiber 4 by a condenser lens 3. The excited light 2 is guided by the optical fiber 4, up to an emission end 4b thereof, coupled to a light guide inlet of a confocal scanner unit 5.
Beams of the excited light 2 emitted from the emission end 4b of the optical fiber 4 are turned into diverging rays with a spread-angle dependent on NA of the optical fiber 4, thereby falling on a collimator lens 6. The collimator lens 6 is disposed at a position where a distance between the emission end 4b and the collimator lens 6 coincides with a focal length of the collimator lens 6, and beams incident thereon are converted into collimated beams before being emitted.
The collimated beams converted from the excited light 2 fall on a microlens disk 7 to be thereby converted into converging rays by respective microlenses disposed on the microlens disk 7. The respective excited lights 2 converted into the converging rays are transmitted through a dichroic mirror 8 to be subsequently condensed on a pinhole disk 9.
As pinholes are disposed on the pinhole disk 9, so as to be in the same pattern as a pattern in which the microlenses are disposed on the microlens disk 7, the respective excited lights 2 condensed on the pinhole disk 9 can be transmitted through the respective pinholes corresponding thereto.
The respective excited lights 2 transmitted through the pinhole disk 9, as described above, are condensed on an observation specimen 11 by an objective lens 10. A fluorescent light is generated on the observation specimen 11 by the excited light 2, and the fluorescent light serving as an observation light 12 is condensed again on the pinhole disk 9 by the objective lens 10. The observation light 12 transmitted through the pinhole on account of a confocal effect is reflected by the dichroic mirror 8 to be subsequently condensed on an image sensor 14 via a relay lens 13.
With a configuration as described, by rotating both the microlens disk 7, and the pinhole disk 9, in such a state as mechanically joined together, it becomes possible to scan the surface of the specimen 11 with the excited light 2, so that a scanned image of the observation light 12 scanned by the excited light 2 can be formed on the image sensor 14.
[Patent Document 1]
JP 5-60980 A
[Patent Document 2]
JP 2001-228402 A